District News Roundup

Gov. Joe Frank Harris of Georgia has charged that the Atlanta Board
of Education may be trying to circumvent the state's education-reform
act by rehiring 47 teach6ers who have not yet passed the state's
teacher-certification tests.

At a news conference Sept. 16, Mr. Harris said he was "greatly"
concerned by the board's plan to allow the teachers to keep working as
substitutes.

"Unavoidably, this action creates the impression that the
accountability provisions of the Quality Basic Education program are
being circumvented," he said. The Governor added that, if necessary, he
would move to strengthen the state's policies and laws governing
substitutes.

But Eugene Bales, director of support services for the Atlanta
public schools, said that the district was observing the law.

He argued that the 47 teachers were among the best substitutes the
district could find, since they were already familiar with the school
system. "In a system our size, we need more substitute teachers every
day than we have bodies to fill," he said.

Georgia is one of only three states that require veteran teachers to
pass a test to be recertified.

School employees suspected of having aids in Colorado's St. Vrain
Valley School District may be required to undergo testing for exposure
to the aids virus under a new policy on communicable diseases outlined
by school officials.

Those employees who test positive may be fired, the new rules state,
if school officials determine that the infected employees are either
physically unable to continue work or pose a threat to the health of
others. The policy, announced last month, has so far provoked little
controversy and is supported by the St. Vrain Valley Teachers'
Association.

A federal judge in Illinois is expected to decide this month whether
school officials in Belleville acted properly when they barred a
6-year-old boy with aids from attending school in that community.

In the first lawsuit of its kind in Illinois, the boy's lawyer and
the American Civil Liberties Union in Chicago charged last month that
officials of Belleville School District 118 unfairly discriminated
against "Johnny Doe" by keeping him out of school. The child, a
hemophiliac whose identity iskept secret at his parents' request, has
been tutored at home since August.

Concern over the spread of aids has prompted a municipal task force in
Alexandria, Va., to recommend distributing condoms to students at a
proposed school-based health clinic.

The task force said in its report that the city-funded clinic should
be located inside Alexandria's only high school or on the school
grounds. Gary Syphers, assistant city manager, said the school board
and city council planned to hold joint public hearings on the
controversial proposal in November.

The ltv Corporation, which had suspended its tax payments after filing
for bankruptcy, has paid Cuyahoga County, Ohio, $8.7 million in
personal-property taxes--about half of which will go to the financially
troubled Cleveland school district.

The Dallas-based conglomerate stopped paying property taxes in
Ohio--where its steel-making operations are headquartered--and in other
states last year, after filing for protection under Chapter 11 of the
federal bankruptcy code.

Cleveland school officials say the district expects to receive $4.4
million of the corporation's 1987 county tax payment. Even with the
additional funds, the district anticipates a deficit of between $6
million and $7 million in the current school year.

Ku Klux Klan members in Toccoa, Ga., have told the local school board
they will work "day and night" to mount a recall campaign if the board
does not reverse a recent redistricting of the Stephens County
elementary schools.

Wearing hooded robes that did not conceal their faces, nine Klan
members attended the Sept. 15 board meeting to register their
opposition to the plan, which was designed to achieve racial balance.
Board members said they could not take any action before consulting
their lawyer.

Officials in New Jersey's largest school district say they will impose
new controls on the use of district motor vehicles in the wake of a
state audit that found evidence of abuses by district employees and
school-board members.

State education officials have recommended that the Newark school
board request a prosecutor's investigation.

The audit included charges that some board members and their
families used chauffeur-driven cars for their personal business.
According to a state official, New6ark is the only district in the
state that provides drivers for its top officials.

Officials in the South St. Paul, Minn., school district are urging
school employees to help "sell" their schools to parents.

As part of a new marketing strategy designed to bolster
public-school enrollment in a state pioneering parental-choice options,
officials met with the district's 350 employees last month and
distributed supplies of business cards imprinted with the slogan, "Our
Family Serving Yours."

"Each staff person represents the school district both in how they
perform on the job and what they say off the job," explained Jeanne
Morphew, director of community education for the school system.

Ten Indiana school districts will receive between $90,000 and $150,000
each from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., this year for programs to improve
their middle-level schools. The 10 urban school systems are among 19
that received smaller grants from the Indiana-based foundation last
year to set improvement efforts in motion.

The $1.4 million in projects--intended, the foundation says, to get
at "the specific educational needs of an age group that often gets lost
in the attention devoted to the primary and high-school years"--include
counseling and support activities involving parents and community
agencies.

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